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Life expectancy has continued to decline in the United States in 2017 compared to 2014, a historical decline mainly due to the drug overdose crisis, according to health statistics released Thursday. "This is the first time we have seen a downward trend since the great flu epidemic of 1918," says AFP Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics, who published the new figures. While stating that the decline was certainly much stronger in 1918.
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In 2017, life expectancy at birth was 76.1 years for men and 81.1 years for women. The average for the population was 78.6 years, compared to 78.9 in 2014. That's three and a half years less than the other side of the border, in Canada, also affected by overdoses. "These statistics alert us to the fact that we are losing too many Americans too often for preventable causes," said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The scourge of drug overdoses began in the early 2000s, its intensity accelerating for four years. In 2017, about 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, 10% more than in 2016. In terms of deaths, Robert Anderson compares this to the peak of the HIV epidemic, with one difference: quickly declined. The statistician hopes that the overdoses will follow the same path. "We are a developed country, life expectancy should increase, not decrease," he says.
A new generation
There are two categories of overdoses: non-opioid drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and other psychostimulants, including MDMA. About 27,000 dead. The increase is largely due to the second category: opiates. This includes heroin, morphine, and so-called semi-synthetic opiates such as oxycodone, a prescription painkiller but diverted to the black market, with the help of complicit doctors and labs who claim to ignore the problem, and who is often the gateway to addiction.
Lately, the majority of deaths came from a new generation: synthetic opiates, like fentanyl, dozens of times more potent than heroin, where a dosage error can be fatal. The singer Prince is dead. The rate of synthetic opiate deaths doubled from 2015 to 2016. Last year, it increased "only" by 45%. This is the relative note of hope contained in the figures of 2017: the number of overdoses continues to grow, but at a pace less sustained.
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